


Red; or; Cake, Vampires, and Other Side Effects of Being Sixteen

by SweetStugLife



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Beginning stages of dementia, Cute Elderly Sapphics Being Cute and Elderly, Dracula - Freeform, F/F, Gen, I am SHOCKED that no one has used Louis Prima's 'Angelina' for Cartinelli before, Memories, Spies & Secret Agents, improvised wooden weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-11 16:04:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17450057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetStugLife/pseuds/SweetStugLife
Summary: August, 2000An aging Peggy and Angie decide to host a foreign exchange student, but there's more than one young lady scoping out their house.Written forlasgalendilas part of theWomen of MCU’s Valentine’s Day Exchange.





	Red; or; Cake, Vampires, and Other Side Effects of Being Sixteen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lasgalendil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/gifts).



> The title was taken from a tumblr meme.

“I hope you like it. Your favorite color was red, right? That’s what your profile said.”

Ayo glances around the bedroom and thanks Bast that this part of her profile was true, because the room is literally _awash_ in scarlet, from the canopy bed to the floor-to-ceiling curtains. The furniture is mahogany and brass, not quite elegant by Wakandan standards but definitely classy by anybody's. She’s heard that Americans can be a generous people when the fancy strikes them, and Agent Carter and Ms. Martinelli appear to have been struck.

“It’s lovely, ma’am. Thank you.”

“Before you start school we’ll take you shopping, get you some knickknacks, make it a real bedroom,” Angie says, squeezing Ayo’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go check on dinner, let you get acquainted and start unpackin’, sound good?”

“Yes, it sounds good,” Ayo says, making sure she sounds reasonably uncomfortable with English. 

Angie jostles Ayo and excuses herself, pulling the door closed behind her. Ayo waits to hear her footsteps fade, which they do quickly—for a lady in her early 80s, Angie Martinelli is pretty sprightly, and Ayo can only imagine Peggy Carter is moreso—before she drops her bags to the floor and pulls out her sweeping device.

Ayo’s been in Dora training since she was ten years old, and at sixteen she’s been deemed ready for crossover training with the Hatut Zeraze; an innovation King T’Chaka had introduced a few years ago. In the rare but not impossible event that the king leaves the country, the Dora should know how to handle themselves as spies as well as bodyguards, so the less mobile Hatut can remain focused on their original missions. Peggy Carter—only semi-retired from SHIELD, having swapped out the title of _Senior Agent_ for _Consultant_ —is the perfect training ground for the second-brightest star in the Dora lineup.

She walks around the room with her device, pulling open drawers and closets. Her bed is a canopy bed and she hops up on the mattress, so she can reach the strip of fabric hanging above her. It's when she hops onto the floor, gets on her knees, and sticks her sweeper under the bed, however, that she gets a hit. 

She tries not to get nervous as she scans an image of the bug and sends it back home. Peggy Carter would presumably want to be careful about _whomever_ she brought into her home; she might know more about Wakanda than the fact that it exists, or she might not. Either way, “Zodwa Yomelela” will remain a guiless foreign exchange student from—

Her device glows at her, and she blinks at the message before narrowing her eyes. 

The bug is Russian-made.

Which means either 1) SHIELD Co-Founder Margaret Elizabeth Alexandra Carter is working for the Russians against Wakanda, or 2) someone else got inside the house and planted it.

The former is possible—Carter had been accused of working for the Russians once already, even if it _was_ several decades ago and she had been exonerated within days—but Ayo thinks the latter is far more likely, which leaves her with the question of who exactly is the intended target, and why.

“Zodwa!” Angie calls. “Your other house mom says she’ll be home in a half hour! I’m gonna shoot for dinner to be done by then!”

“All right, thank you!” Ayo calls back. If she hustles, that’ll give her enough time to sweep the rest of the room and unpack. However energetic the old ladies are, they’ll probably turn in early; she can sweep the rest of the house then.

*

“You said a half hour, English,” Angie pouts, about fifty minutes later.

“Did I?” Peggy responds. “Sorry, darling. Traffic must have been bad. Did you pick Miss...Miss Yomelela up all right this morning?”

“Yes, and she is upstairs, maybe finished unpacking and probably hungry.” Despite the scolding Angie strains her neck—she’s lost some height in her old age—and kisses Peggy’s cheek. "As am I, and as I'm 100% positive you are."

"Quite guilty as charged, my love. And what masterpiece have you crafted for us this evening?"

"Well I figured we’d go easy on the kid gastronomically for the first time out,” Angie says. “So we’re gonna start her off with some zuppa minestrone.”

“[Just to be with her alone](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sqA4IviTEwQ)?”

Angie reaches around so she can swat Peggy’s bottom. 

“Go, sit. I’ll serve. Zodwa!” Angie calls out. “Zodwa, come on down for dinner!”

“Angelina~,” Peggy sings under her breath. 

“English, _hush_.”

“Angelina,” Peggy continues, a little louder now, “the waitress at the pizzeria...”

Ayo hears, as she makes her way downstairs, an English accent yelling “Ti voglio bene!” over an American one trying, not very successfully nor very seriously, to make the English stop. “Angelina, I adore you...”

She rounds the bottom of the steps in time to see an even more determined English lady, her arms wrapped around the waist of the pink-cheeked and grinning American one, singing “E voglio bene / Angelina, I live for you...”

“But Angelina,” Peggy dolefully informs Ayo, “never listens to my song.”

“Ya skipped a couple words there, English,” Angie murmurs, and Ayo’s quick eyes don’t miss the flash of worry that pass through Angie’s. “C’mon, go sit down, Ms. Prima.” She can’t quite hipcheck her—too easy to lose her balance and break a bone that way—but she does forcefully nudge her. “Zodwa, this is Peggy; Peggy, Zodwa. Have a seat anywhere, hon."

"Zodwa, pleasure to meet you," Peggy says, extending a hand; Ayo shakes it firmly and, as expected, Peggy's smile is approving. "How have you enjoyed your last...handful of hours in the United States?"

"Very well, ma'am," Ayo says, following Peggy as she shuffles into a seat; their table is round, so there’s no jockeying for the “head” of the table, or so Ayo supposes. “I like the room you set up for me.”

“We enjoyed setting it up; we share a favorite color, you and I.” Peggy gestures around the room, pointing out every red accent an untrained eye might not have picked up on. “As you might have surmised.”

“Aw, English, I thought we keep it real subtle here,” Angie says, setting three red bowls on the table.

“I assure you your taste is the epitome of elegance and refinement, darling,” Peggy says, catching Angie’s hand and kissing the back of her fingers.

Angie lightly whaps Peggy’s shoulder with the same fingers, but she’s grinning by the time she sits down.

"So Zodwa," Peggy says, touching Ayo's arm and getting her attention. "You’ve got a few days before the school year starts. Is there anywhere you'd want to go see while you've the time?"

"There was nowhere in particular," Ayo says, before putting on a smile. "I thought my hosts should decide."

"Oh, isn't she sweet," Angie says.

"We could take you into the city," Peggy says. "Show you a few of our old haunts."

"That would be nice," Ayo says.

"Oh...English, I don't know how many of those places are still around," Angie says. “It’s been a long time...”

"Well...well I'm sure there must still be a few," Peggy says, frowning. "One or two, at least."

"...Maybe. We'll see. And even if there's not, a day trip into the city would be nice. I _know_ at least one of the theatres I did a show in is still standing."

"Angie's an actress," Peggy informs Ayo.

" _Was_ , in any case," Angie says.

“Oh, I like to act, too,” Ayo says, and it’s not even technically a lie. “I was in a play just before I came here.” Also not technically a lie; religious ritual can count as a performance. 

“Oh really?” Angie’s eyes light up at the prospect of a fellow thespian. “You’ll have to tell us all about it while we eat.”

“What kind of soup is this, darling?”

Ayo _feels_ the stutter in Angie’s wrist as her spoon pauses in mid-air. 

“It’s minestrone, sweetheart.”

“...Oh right, right. Yes.”

“Here, Zodwa,” Angie says, and Ayo turns her head to look at her blonde host mom. “Let me know what you think of the soup; I can doctor it up a bit if it’s not to your taste, if you need.”

Ayo sips at a spoonful. Not anywhere near as spicy as she normally takes her food, but not as bland as she’d been expecting. “I like it.”

“See, I told you that other people like garlic,” Angie flings at Peggy. 

“I like garlic! You just use it as though you’re trying to ward off a horde of vampires.”

“Stop being so British.”

“What is a vampire?” Ayo asks, like she doesn’t know. 

“...Well now we know what movie night is going to be,” Peggy says. 

“A vampire is...it’s a monster, a fake monster,” Angie explains. “They kill people and suck their blood to survive. Garlic...well it kills vampires.”

“And there is...a movie about vampires?” Ayo asks. 

“There are _several_ movies about vampires. And we’re gonna watch _Dracula_ tonight if you’re up to it. He’s, Dracula’s the most famous vampire.”

Ayo nods, slowly. “All right. I could watch a movie tonight.”

“Great! We’ll watch it with dessert.”

“And what are we having, darling?” Peggy asks. “You haven’t said already, have you?”

“No, I haven’t,” Angie says, a little too blithely. “In honor of our guest, I have slaved over a hot cash register to bring you...” she grins, and this expression is much more genuine, “... _red_ velvet cake.”

*

Ayo likes the cake, but she likes the popcorn that Angie makes, and that she seasons with a quick raid of the ladies’ spice cabinet, even more. She also, to her mild surprise, likes the movie; it’s from 1931 and Peggy remembers sneaking into the theatre to see it after her mother expressly forbade her to.

“I had nightmares for a week and I couldn’t even tell her about it!” Peggy cackles, while Angie giggles beside her; they’ve taken the couch, while Ayo has curled up on a recliner. “My brother, Michael, he was such a horror. He knew I’d gone to see it and he was determined to torture me for it.”

“Oh, this is good,” Angie snickers. 

“So there was this squeaking board outside my bedroom door, and I went to bed earlier than he did. So he waits until my mum and dad retire for the evening, and then he creeps his way up to my room to stand on this floorboard and just...”

She imitiates the noise as best she can. 

“Now I’m already thirteen years old, mind, but it doesn't matter, I’m absolutely out of my mind with terror. And I—” she pauses to laugh, “my mum had put a huge crucifix in my room when I was a baby and we never took it down. It was too heavy to faff around with. So I know that even if it's not a vampire on other side of my door, anything that gets the whack from this crucifix isn't getting back up any time soon. So..." She hunches over. "I get it off my wall, and I tiptoe to my door, and...I _yank_ my door open and I—"

She mimes swinging a crucifix like a baseball bat and pulls a grotesquely terrified face, and Angie positively _crows_.

"Now he _ducked_ , thank the Lord; I didn't kill my brother with blunt force head trauma, but I did get to hear him scream like a banshee, like..."

She attempts to mimic the noise, and between that and Angie's continued amusement even Ayo has to laugh, sincerely.

"And he just goes _tearing_ down the hallway like, well, like a bat out of hell, as it were. And my father comes running out of his room to see what the fuss is all about, and Michael just ploughs into him and..."

Peggy tosses her hands in the air like her father and brother got tossed to the floor, affecting a shocked look.

"We got in _so much_ trouble."

"Aw, English, if only you'd had garlic."

Peggy picks up a stray popcorn kernel from the bowl on her lap and pitches it gently at Angie's face. She earns a raspberry in return.

"Oh, I'm so glad we watched that," Peggy says, standing with bowl in hand. "Whose idea was it?"

Ayo had been smiling around a crumb of cake that she had put on her tongue with her fingertip, so she feels her lips when the corners thereof drop.

"Yours, English."

"Oh. Was it? Ha." Peggy swipes her fingertips across her forehead. "How much have I had to drink tonight? Zodwa, here, give me your dishes; I'll put them in the sink."

Ayo raises her eyebrows to Angie once Peggy leaves the room. Angie waves her hand, rather strongly for how vague of a response it is, and stands up.

"English?" she calls into the kitchen. "I'm gonna start getting ready for bed."

"All right. I'll meet you there."

"You tired, hon?" Angie directs at Ayo.

"Um, not yet."

"Wired, then. Well, feel free to stay up; me and English sleep like the dead. Help yourself to whatever. See ya in the morning."

"Thank you. Good night."

Peggy comes back into the room a few seconds later. She blinks, clasping her hands together and pointing them towards the couch for a moment, before muttering "Bedtime. Right."

She turns to Ayo, smiling, and Ayo smiles back.

“Did you enjoy your first day with us?"

"Very much so, thank you ma'am."

"Good, good. I’m glad. I know it can be...difficult, being an ex-pat. It’s quite lonely, sometimes. That’s why I told Angie, when we saw the ad for hosting exchange students, that we ought to do it. If _anyone_ could be an empathetic host mom...”

“That was very thoughtful of you.”

“And you’ll just have to excuse my...vagueries,” Peggy says, lightly touching her head. “Sometimes I think so much about when I was young that I...don’t register the present, I think.”

Ayo nods, slowly. 

“Well. Don’t stay up too late, love. See you in the morning.”

“Have a good night.”

*

Ayo waits about an hour after Peggy disappears down the hallway to begin her search of the house. It’s hard; the house her host mothers have lived in for fiftysomeodd years has its own creaky floorboards, but she’s light-footed from Dora training, and Peggy and Angie appear to be as heavy sleepers as Angie said.

There are other bugs scattered throughout the house. Carter must be in worse shape than she’s letting on, Ayo supposes with a grimace when she finds one tucked into the dining room chandelier. The yard is probably compromised too. 

Getting outside with minimal noise is a little harder; the back door fair to shrieks when it opens, and Ayo pauses for a long time, perfecting her speech on having “heard a noise” in her head. But neither woman comes into the room or calls out within two minutes, and Ayo feels comfortable enough to tiptoe outside.

The yard is a big, busy place; Carter and Martinelli keep a flower garden as well as a vegetable garden, and there are several bushes and trees scattered across the property. Ayo investigates the gardens first, since some of the plants are grown tall enough to hide bugs, and she does find one. Next are the juniper bushes sitting a flammability-mitigating distance from the house; she gets a few weird, sticky quasi-scratches from them. America and its weird plants, _hmph_. She pulls a bright blue...berry, she supposes it is, off the bush and tosses it to the ground as vengeance. 

It makes a cracking noise she wasn’t expecting, and suddenly gray smoke plumes out of the now-broken “seed.”

Ayo throws herself backwards into the bushes and then goes scrambling downwind; but even in her rush to get away she can hear the rustle of someone trying to get out of one of the trees. There’s another cracking sound, much louder, and though she can’t see it she can tell that whomever it is has fallen from their perch, taking the branch with them.

And Ayo goes with the first idea that pops into her head. 

The smoke is clearing, but just barely; as she sprints forward she can make out the shape of her opponent and the branch that had betrayed them. Luckily it’s at an angle that lets her bend down, scoop it up with both hands, and swing at the spy’s head in one fluid motion. 

It connects as beautifully as a [mahag](https://www.hungryng.com/africa-sports-in-africa-top-7-african-traditional-sports/) bat to a ball, and while Ayo’s target doesn’t go flying quite as far, she thinks the person actually does get some air. 

A floodlight snaps on, blanketing the entire yard in bright white, and in the second that Ayo is blind, her opponent scrambles to their feet and takes off. All she sees, when her eyes adjust, is someone with a shock of red hair hurtling over Carter and Martinelli’s wrought iron fence. 

*

“Always satisfying to see one’s wisdom and experience being passed onto the next generation,” Peggy says, folding her arms as she looks out the window.

“Excuse you, whose idea was it to boobytrap the juniper bush?” Angie says, fitting her chin over Peggy’s shoulder. “I believe it was mine.”

“I never said it was only _my_ wisdom and experience,” Peggy says, reaching over to gently tug on Angie’s hair. 

Angie had called Peggy earlier today, a few hours before she left to pick up their exchange student; evidently someone had taken advantage of the vacation she and Peggy had just returned from. They decided against shorting the bugs out, in case the lack of noise drew their spy’s attention; instead Peggy had sent a tech she had befriended over to the house, to set up the Foreign Body Rejection field. They’d made sure the exchange student had been programmed into the protocol—Angie had the tech lift DNA from the introductory letter Zodwa had handwritten and sent—but anyone unapproved would not have made it any closer to the house than the intruder had.

That their houseguest had known how to handle herself in a fight, they hadn’t been expecting until Ayo tripped a newly-installed sensor in the bushes, waking them both up and bringing them to the window just in time see her accidentally set off the smoke bomb. 

“So, are we gonna _tell_ her that we—”

“Uh-oh. Angie, look.” 

The fog has cleared completely, and they watch Zodwa takes a few steps closer to the fence. Even with her back turned, they can tell she’s squinting after the person that had run away. 

“She’s intrigued.”

“Oh _no_ ,” Angie laughs. “Well, she _did_ have Baby Lesbian written all over her...”

“Never fall for the enemy, Zodwa. If that _is_ your real name.”

“Favorite color’s red, indeed,” Angie mutters, kissing Peggy’s shoulder. Peggy giggles, finding Angie’s hand and covering it with her own. “That’s a mean swing the kid’s got. Could give you a run for your money.”

“Well now, I’m not that bad for an old biddy, am I?”

“Of course not.”

“I think I’ve still got it, even if I’m...you know, what with my...vagueries.”

Angie breathes in deeply, and Peggy feels her sigh travel all the way down her back.

“You’re the best, English,” Angie whispers, pressing her lips to Peggy’s shoulder again. Peggy tenses up into the kiss and then relaxes, tilting her head so she rests her cheek on the crown of Angie’s head. 

“I’d eat antipasta twice / Just because she is so nice...”

Angie groans aloud and, in the spirit of the day, turns her face sideways, and bites Peggy’s neck.


End file.
